Research documents Titler

The case of harmonised Public Sector Accounting Standards for European Union Member States

Aggestam, Caroline; Brusca, Isabel; Chow, Danny(Frederiksberg, 2014)

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Resume:

Financial crisis has emphasized the need for harmonized public sector accounts in Europe. After a public consultation on the suitability of the IPSAS for EU Member States, the European Commission considers that the proper way is the development of European Union Standards adapted to IPSAS (renaming it EPSAS). As a consequence, the issue of the governance for the future development of EPSAS was identified as a priority for follow-up. A first meeting of a Task Force of experts delegated from EU national governments took place in October 2013 to exchange views on possible future governance arrangements. On the basis of that discussion, Eurostat launched another public consultation named; ‘Towards implementing European Public Sector Accounting Standards for EU member states-Public consultation on future EPSAS governance principles and structures’.
This paper seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of the negotiations and interactions that took place prior to, during and after the issuance of the public consultation on the ‘Suitability of IPSAS’. The focus of this paper is therefore on a systematic analysis of the construction of regional-transnational governance of public sector accounting, using the EPSAS as a focus of study. In doing so it is sought to identify the institutional pressures, trace the actor dynamics, as well as strategies enrolled leading up to the IPSAS consultation and consultation about governance at the European level. The method of the paper will be based on document review.

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The overall purpose of this thesis is to examine how and why internal processes,
systems, and structures influence the construction of social and environmental
reports. The three papers that are included in this thesis approach this research
objective from three different but interrelated perspectives. Each of these
perspectives is an essential aspect of reporting practices. By conducting case
studies and including organisational members who participate in social and
environmental reporting (SER) processes (Adams and Whelan, 2009; Farneti and
Guthrie, 2009), this thesis strives to contribute to increased knowledge regarding
organisational reporting behaviours and the construction of SER (Laine, 2009;
Parker, 2007; Thomson and Bebbington, 2005; Adams, 2004; Gray, 2005; Adams
and Larrinaga-González, 2007; Tilt, 2006; O'Dwyer, 2005b; Spence and Rinaldi,
2012; O'Dwyer et al., 2011; Tregidga et al., 2012b). Thus, by attempting to ‘look
inside organisations’ and by emphasising the role of the organisational context, the
three articles of this thesis provide insights into details regarding 1) the reporting
environment and audit trail; 2) the role of stakeholder engagement in SER; and 3)
why certain impacts of organisational activities are included (or excluded) in
social and environmental reports. The three papers addressing these topics have
been motivated by an aspiration to establish a more nuanced understanding of the
current state of SER.

The paper is concerned with the measurement of emotions and the study of the role of
emotions in consumer choice. Contemporary neurological findings suggest that emotions
may play a role in its own right, quite different from the way in which they have been
considered in traditional consumer choice behaviour theory. A large-scale study including
800 respondents, covering 64 brands, provide findings on emotional response tendencies
for the brands, and relate these to involvement, type of need gratification, purchasing
behaviour, etc.

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In the consumer behaviour literature several perspectives on consumer decision making have
been considered, including the ‘value perspective’, the ‘information processing perspective’,
the ‘emotional perspective’, and ‘cue utilization theory’. In this paper, a framework which
integrates several perspectives on consumer decision making and which hypothesizes possible
links between several basic constructs is developed. The framework is tested by the use of
two experimental designs. The results of this study support the complexity of consumer
decision making: (A) Consumers do not use their cognitive and affective skills independently,
rather they affect each other; (B) the cognitive, evaluative constructs of quality and attitude
had significant direct effects on buying intention in both experiments, whereas the affective
construct of emotion had no significant effects on buying intention in both experiments; (C)
price affected in both experiments perceived quality, which in turn affected attitude, which in
turn affected buying intention. At the same time, price had no direct effect on buying
intention.

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A rather new business trend concerns social responsible or ethical marketing. Instead of just selling products and brands it makes professional sense to “bundle” or associate the purchase of a product with some altruist activity. While the market share of ethical subcategories in most countries is still confined to a few percentages of the total market at best, it appears that the segment will grow during the next decade. The increased interest for sustainability is found within many western societies both within the business community, academic circles, the political system and among plain consumers. Up to now relatively few empirical studies have focused on the topic. The present study is based on a large scale panel study and uses the German coffee market for profiling the consumer of faire trade coffee and analyzes how this consumer differs from the mainstream consumer. Also, we explore why some consumers intend to buy fair trade coffee but do not purchase the product (and vice versa). Several interesting findings are revealed. Implications for promotion of fair trade coffee are discussed and suggestions for further research are addressed.

This paper tests the ability of two consumer theories - the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior - in predicting consumer online grocery buying intention. In addition, a comparison of the two theories is conducted. Data were collected from two web-based surveys of Danish (n=1222) and Swedish (n=1038) consumers using self-administered questionnaires. Lisrel results suggest that the theory of planned behavior (with the inclusion of a path from subjective norm to attitude) provides the best fit to the data and explains the highest proportion of variation in online grocery buying intention. Keywords Online buying intention – groceries - theory of reasoned action – theory of planned behavior – lisrel

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The regulation of the telecommunication industry in Denmark is quite liberal. There are no requirements to register with national authorities when providing telecommunication services or Premium Rate Services. Only Network Operators, who want to make use of the scarce frequency resources, must register with the National IT and Telecom Agency. This liberal approach may be a contributory factor to the fact that there are no official statistics on Premium Rate Services available from public authorities. This article is structured into five parts concerning 1) Premium Rate Services in Denmark, 2) relevant actors, 3) regulation concerning Network Operators, 4) regulation concerning Content Providers, and 5) telecommunication services that are not Premium Rate Services. The proposed structure has been departed to reflect the general division of regulation concerning the Network Operator and the Content Provider, respectively. The areas covered, reflects the regulation that is relevant to those Premium Rate Services provided in Denmark. The emphasis of the article is laid on the regulation safeguarding consumers in the context of Premium Rate Services. This regulation may be grouped into regulation that:
sets requirements for carrying out business as Network Operator or Content Provider, concerns which Premium Rate Service may be provided, and under which number-series or applications codes, imposes certain information requirements, ensures fair and truthful marketing of the Premium Rate Services, or allows the User to monitor his bill, limit his usage, or limits the liability in connection to unauthorised usage.
Infringement of the legislation in question is mainly sanctioned by administrative or civil sanctions. The overall impression is that the Danish telecommunication industry is quite active in securing compliance with the law.

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1
Abstract: This study describes a process in which a firm relies on an external consumer community
for innovation. While it has been recognized that users may sometimes innovate, little is known about
what commercial firms can do to motivate and capture such innovations and their related benefits. We
contribute to the strategy literature by suggesting that learning and innovation efforts from which a
firm may benefit need not necessarily be located within the organization, but may well reside in the
consumer environment. We also contribute to the existing theory on "user-driven innovation" by
showing what firms purposively can do to generate consumer innovation efforts. An explorative case
study shows that consumer innovation can be structured, motivated, and partly organized by a
commercial firm that lays out the infrastructure for interactive learning by consumers in a public
Keywords: Product Development, Consumer-to-Consumer Interaction, Learning, Consumer Innovation, Community, User-toolkits.
JEL code(s): L21; L23; O31; O32

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Most studies in marketing operate at a market level, which also becomes frequently the condition
for design work. This means that the aggregate or weighted average consumer is the focus. Having
already made this aggregation as the “top-down approach” indicates, it is not feasible to take the
individuals apart and explore how they differ individually. This is so because already the concepts
and the methodology are founded at the aggregate level. The differences have been eliminated and
replaced by an assumed normal distribution or similar. We depart from that and start our
investigations at an individual level. This means, in the “bottom up” approach we keep the
individual variation or differences intact for further analysis. We base our concept and methodology
at the individual level. Only then, understanding what happens for the single individual we can
eventually aggregate to see the consequences at a market level. We explore a procedure that enables
the marketer to estimate the effect of a marketing message like a mission statement in a logo at the
level of a single individual. This is a prior to market test, with its own realism. The procedure can
easily be extended to products, where both quality and price (willingness to pay) are issues and it
can also be used as a follow-up after the round of pre-test.
To satisfy individual users, real individuals should be considered in their heterogeneity. Relevant
psychological and statistical methods and reasoning are useful in keeping the trace of the individual.
In the bottom up approach we measure how much the influence of a treatment like that of facing a
particular design influences each human being. Successively, one may see if other behavioural
characteristics also unite for instance those who are heavily affected or those who are not. Then a
new behavioural based community may appear.

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In this paper, we suggest that many of the choice situations confronting consumers in the modern marketplace have become supra-complex. Supra-complex decision-making occurs when the perceived difficulty of transforming product information into knowledge exceeds the expected benefits of doing so, even if decision-making heuristics, or other kind of attribute-related decision rules, are applied. Under conditions of supra-complexity, we propose that consumers instead use mental markers in order to justify their decisions. Mental markers are any mental construct the consumer uses for the purpose of gaining mental justification of overall choices. We argue that the usage of mental markers leads to reductions in cognitive dissonance, reduced usage of mental resources and time. Drawing on the principle of mental justification as well as consumers’ propensity to use goals as blueprints for directing their behaviour, we propose a framework for understanding consumer decisions when faced with supra-complexity.

For several decades industrial economics in Michael Porter’s rendering has ruled
business analysis in information systems. Have Internet technologies brought the demise of
Industrial Economics as tool for information systems (IS) analyses? Examples of electronic
exchanges indicate a break between business and information models. We critically assess
Porter’s analysis of the Internet and exchanges finding relationships, coordination and
complementarity rather than positioning and activity analysis applicable. Whether to amend or
discard Porterian models considering the relevance of network economics and collaboration
models for information systems analyses concludes our discussion.

The paper argues that the contrast between studies of MNCs which emphasise isomorphism and those which emphasise social embeddedness is unhelpful. Following recent institutionalist discussions which have emphasised the dynamic nature of firms, and institutions, it is argued that the transnational social space of the multinational encompasses a variety of different forms of actors which are engaged in processes that partially produce isomorphism and partially reproduce institutional difference. This perspective is proposed not as a middle way between the two institutionalisms but as a way to capture the ongoing dynamics of MNCs. The paper illustrates this approach through considering four ideal-typical ‘games’ which occur inside MNCs. These games are analysed in terms of the actors, the institutional resources brought into the game, the emerging rules of the game, the outcomes of the game and how these processes relate to institutional theory. These games reveal the complex interaction of processes of isomorphism and social differentiation and suggest an agenda for further research on MNCs that will focus on examining how these games interact and with what effect in different sorts of multinationals.
Keywords: Multinationals; institutionalism; varieties of capitalism; isomorphism; embeddedness.

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This dissertation examines the case of the palm oil cluster in Malaysia and Indonesia, today
one of the largest agricultural clusters in the world. My analysis focuses on the evolution of
the cluster from the 1880s to the 1970s in order to understand how it helped these two
countries to integrate into the global economy in both colonial and post-colonial times.
The study is based on empirical material drawn from five UK archives and background
research using secondary sources, interviews, and archive visits to Malaysia and Singapore.
The dissertation comprises three articles, each discussing a major under-researched topic in
the cluster literature – the emergence of clusters, their governance and institutional change,
and competition between rival cluster locations – through the case of the Southeast Asian
palm oil cluster.

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Contracts and exits from a sample of 179 investment rounds in 132 entrepreneurial firms
by 17 European venture capital (VC) funds are analyzed. The data indicate the financial contracts
are quite heterogeneous in terms of both the cash flow and control rights. The use of different
securities by European VC funds does not depend on the definition of venture capital, and the
securities used are not functional equivalents. A normative empirical analysis of exit shows the
likelihood of different types of exit vehicles (IPO, acquisition, and liquidation) and the returns to
venture capital depend on not only firm specific characteristics but also the allocation of cash
flow and control rights.
Keywords: Venture Capital, Financial Contracting, Exit, IPO, Acquisition
JEL Classification: G24, G28, G31, G32, G35

Departing from an elaboration of the idea of a citizenship protection nexus (1), the argument developed below is that the introduction of a neo-liberal governance forms security is leading to far reaching (but largely unacknowledged). It is transforming the understanding of the rights to protection that come with citizenship, de facto transforming it from a general right tied to political citizenship to contracted right to be negotiated (2). At the same time, far from working to weakening the role of the state in security provision, the market is reinforcing it (3) and accentuating the military aspect of protection (4). The overall consequence is that the nexus tying citizenship to protection is increasingly shaped by the commercialized national and military concerns (promoted by public and private security professionals). As this paper concludes, attempts to frame and shape the citizenship-protection nexus in alternative ways—for example attempts to de-link citizenship from states and/or to de-militarize citizenship—are the main causalities of this re-ordering.